Roving Camera Blog: Bill Zarchyhttp://www.billzarchy.com/blog
Thu, 26 Jul 2018 22:26:38 +0000en-UShourly1https://wordpress.org/?v=4.9.8A Storytelling Journeyhttp://www.billzarchy.com/blog/a-storytelling-journey/
http://www.billzarchy.com/blog/a-storytelling-journey/#respondThu, 26 Jul 2018 02:16:38 +0000http://www.billzarchy.com/blog/?p=1068I gave a talk on Storytelling at my 50th Dartmouth College Reunion last month. Following is the text of my ten-minute introduction. If you want to see the whole, one-hour presentation, including video clips and stories, click on the video player below. Closed Captions (CC) available.

I never wanted to be a performer … until I discovered storytelling.

About two-and-a-half years ago, a friend of mine had a gig playing classical guitar at The Marsh, a club in Berkeley that was hosting a monthly storytelling night called Tell It On Tuesday. She urged me to come along. After she finished playing, five people, all roughly my age, stood up in turn and told stories. . . . CONTINUE READING: A Storytelling Journey]]>

I gave a talk on Storytelling at my 50th Dartmouth College Reunion last month. Following is the text of my ten-minute introduction. If you want to see the whole, one-hour presentation, including video clips and stories, click on the video player below titled Storytelling Bill Zarchy. Closed Captions (CC) available. Thanks to Susan Zarchy for the photos.

About two-and-a-half years ago, a friend of mine had a gig playing classical guitar at The Marsh, a club in Berkeley that was hosting a monthly storytelling night called Tell It On Tuesday. She urged me to come along. After she finished playing, five people, all roughly my age, stood up in turn and told stories.

I was entranced. By that time, I had been listening to The Moth, the storytelling show on National Public Radio, for years. I had written and published a memoir, had read some of my stories at several book launches and other events, and I knew I loved readingin public. This story event at Tell It On Tuesday felt very familiar, except for one thing: none of these tellers were reading. They all TOLD their stories off the cuff, in the oral tradition, without text or notes.

My first thought, surprising myself: I can do that! [Text continues below]

Some background: I was lucky enough to have a great career, hooking up with people and productions that took me all around the world, shooting film and video projects on six continents, in about 30 countries. I shot some concerts and documentaries, but most of my work was for Silicon Valley companies. In the later years, I often worked for medical technology clients.

Late in the last century, I began to write about my work and travels. In the early days, I would scribble a few pages in a fax to my family while I was on the road. Then later I wrote extensive emails to my wife and kids, describing where I was and what I was doing. Then, as an afterthought, I copied my parents, other family, and a few friends as well.

In the spring of 2000, I was hired to shoot a project about the spread of technology to remote areas of the world, with three separate journeys to Costa Rica, Alaska, and India.

By then, I had my own website, and I began to post a daily travel journal of these three remarkable trips: photos, notes, observations, and anecdotes about meeting people, filming our assignments, and the often-interesting story of what was going on behindthe scenes, either with our small film crew, or with the folks we met along the way. This was 18 years ago, and no one called it a travel blog yet. The other guys on my crew told their friends and families, and they all enjoyed reading about our exploits.

When we got to India, the crew we hired there had already read about our shoots in Costa Rica and Alaska. That was a big deal in 2000.

After that shoot, I began to write about more of my productions. I taught Advanced Cinematography and Lighting to grad students at San Francisco State for twelve years, and blogged and sold some technical articles about filmmaking, but my heart has always been with the non-technical side, the playful, poignant, personal stories taking place on the other side of the camera. I assembled 18 of these pieces into my first book, the memoir I mentioned, Showdown at Shinagawa: Tales of Filming from Bombay to Brazil.

But now I’m retired from the film business and I’ve reinvented myself as a storyteller. The oral tradition. No notes, no text.

Why storytelling? I am intrigued by its universal appeal, the fact that most cultures have an oral tradition of stories handed down from mouth to ear for thousands of years of human prehistory. Long before there was a written Bible, many of those tales existed in oral form.

Just to be clear, I’m defining a “story” as a sequential, event-by-event narrative, in the form of “First we went to the station. Then it started to rain. So I called my mom, who picked us up for dinner. Later, the giant rabbit attacked us.” This includes novels, Hollywood screenplays, and my uncle’s account of his visit to the proctologist.

“If we listen to a PowerPoint presentation with boring bullet points, a certain part in the brain gets activated … it hits our language processing parts … where we decode words into meaning …

“When we are being tolda story, things change dramatically. Not only are the language processing parts in our brain activated, but any other areas in our brain that we would use when experiencing the events of the story are too.

“Stories can be a way for humans to feel that we have control over the world. They allow people to see patterns where there is chaos, meaning where there is randomness. Humans are inclined to see narratives where there are none because it can afford meaning to our lives—a form of existential problem-solving.

“Stories can also inform people’s emotional lives. Storytelling, especially in novels, allows people to peek into someone’s conscience to see how other people think.”

I’m very comfortable with this medium, even though I’m terrible at memorization. I certainly use some of the same language each time, in specific spots, but as a rule, most storytellers don’t memorize fixed scripts. I think of the learning process as absorbing the story, wrapping my head around it, then reproducing it as needed. I use notes when learning the story, but mostly just bullet points to remember the order of events. One of my storytelling teachers, who is a few years older than I am and has been telling since she was a little girl, never writes anythingdown. A remarkable brain!

If I asked you to tell me how you found your house or met your spouse, you’d know how to tell that story. If I ask you again tomorrow or in a week, you’ll tell me the same story, possibly worded a bit differently or in a slightly different order.

If you ask my Atlanta cousins about their cruise, or selling a car, or their daughter’s wedding, they’ll say, “Ooh. Let me tell you that story.” And then they do. We all have stories.

It’s verbal jazz, really. Each telling refines the tale. It never comes out the same way twice, and that gives it a genuine quality, a special charm. Because the teller isn’t reading, eye contact with the audience is an important factor. It’s all about live interaction.

I’m no expert. I’ve been doing this less than three years. But I’m here to tell you that this can be fabulous fun—often moving and transformative—for both teller and listener. Storytelling is a profoundly stimulating form of creativity, and an ever-changing source of live entertainment.

Storytelling is also remarkably accessible in nearly every part of the world, the reason I included so many resources in the handout packet. Please note this is a partial list to get you started, not exhaustive.

Of course, the variety of stories to tell is endless. I love personal and travel stories, but I embrace the broad range of possibilities, including Historical, Folk, and Traditional stories. The tellers I saw that night at Tell It On Tuesday all came from Stagebridge, a senior performance theatre company in Oakland that offers classes in storytelling.

Last October, exactly two years after I witnessed my first “telling” at The Marsh in Berkeley, I was on the bill at Tell It On Tuesday as one of Stagebridge’s tellers.

I recently finished the EPIC program, a two-year course of study in storytelling at Stagebridge, which includes classes in performance techniques and telling in a variety of genres. The final course helped me overcome my fear of telling stories to children. Yesterday was the program graduation party, but I missed it to come here instead.

For my final project in the program this April, I produced and performed a one-man solo storytelling show at a small club in Berkeley. I challenged and amazed myself by telling eight stories in all, including a couple of folk tales and a historical piece about FDR. The rest were about family and travel, and one was based on a printed story in my book. Links to videos of my solo show are included in your packet.

I’m going to show you four brief video clips of my work, from different parts of the world. After each clip, I’ll present four of the tales in my book.

First I’ll READ two of the stories, then I’ll TELL the other two.

That’s the end of the text of my ten-minute introduction. If you want to see the whole, one-hour presentation, including video clips and stories, click on the video player above titled Storytelling Bill Zarchy. Closed Captions (CC) available.

My solo storytelling show last Friday was amazing, a real peak experience! What a fun evening! I had a terrific time and feel wonderful about having challenged myself like that. I did eight stories, about 75-80 minutes of material in all.

The place was packed. About 48 people in a medium-smallish room. I guess gratuitous self-promotion pays off, eh? Every single chair was in use. I was so pleased with the turnout and the enthusiasm of the audience, even if most of them were friends! They laughed a lot, usually at appropriate moments, and applauded each story. What fun!

Thanks to my dear wife Susan, who provided sumptuous snacks and recorded the whole show on video. I’ll have it online in the next few days. Thanks also to Daniel Zarchy, Jennifer Chinlund, and Judy Brown for coming early to help set up, then staying to clean up, and to Danny, Ben Tucker, and Peter J. Logan for the photos.

My solo storytelling show last Friday was amazing, a real peak experience! What a fun evening! I had a terrific time and feel wonderful about having challenged myself like that. I did eight stories, about 75-80 minutes of material in all.

The place was packed. About 48 people in a medium-smallish room. I guess gratuitous self-promotion pays off, eh? Every single chair was in use. I was so pleased with the turnout and the enthusiasm of the audience, even if most of them were friends! They laughed a lot, usually at appropriate moments, and applauded each story. What fun!

Thanks to my dear wife Susan, who provided sumptuous snacks and recorded the whole show on video. I’ll have it online in the next few days. Thanks also to Daniel Zarchy, Jennifer Chinlund, and Judy Brown for coming early to help set up, then staying to clean up, and to Danny, Ben Tucker, and Peter J. Logan for the photos.

Jake rushed through the door—sweaty and disheveled—to find Al playing solitaire in the main lodge.

“Al! I just had a moose encounter,” said Jake. “Up on Bacon Ridge. It was pretty great, dude. Wait’ll I tell the guys at home about this.”

“Was it sweet and chocolatey?”

“No, dipshit! Not that kind of moose, with a U! Moose with two O’s, like Bullwinkle. Huge, with antlers. I just saw one.”

“Tell me.”

“I grabbed my camera, hiked to the top, then took a few snaps, looking down at the ranch in the fall foliage. It was right purdy, pardner.”

“Jake, you’ve gotta cut that shit out. We’ll be home in Baltimore at the end of the week, and you’ll still be a dental hygienist. Not John Fucking Wayne.”

“Whatever. I blazed a doobie up there, lay in the sun for a while, then began to walk slowly down, through a clearing covered with wildflowers. Then, up ahead, off the trail, I saw movement in the trees. Something big and brown. Large, broad, flat antlers. Lots of points on them.”

“And you’re sure it was a moose? How do you know? You’ve never seen a live moose before.”

Jake looked at him with the same expression he might have if he’d been watching a baboon scratch its balls. “Al, I’ve seen enough ‘Bullwinkle’ episodes to identify those antlers.”

“You can’t be serious!”

“Hey, whatevs. Dude, trust me, this was a moose.”

Caleb, the owner of the ranch, entered the lodge then and stopped to hear Jake’s tale.

“So, Caleb, there I was, not far from this moose. I raised the camera to look at him, but all I had was my wide-angle lens.”

“So?”

“So … I wanted a closer shot. But I didn’t have a zoom.”

“Oh shit.”

“Yup. I moved closer. He (or she; what do I know?) …”

“If it’s got antlers, it’s a bull moose.”

“Right! So he continued to move through the trees. I took another picture as he turned away. He was huge. I moved in, stealthily advancing on my tiptoes …”

“ … I have trouble trying to visualize your stealth … “

“ … and I took another snap. The moose stopped and turned that big old head and looked straight at me.”

“Oy. What did you do?” asked Al.

“Yes, what did you do?” asked Caleb, suddenly pondering his insurance liability if a moose were to dismember one of his guests.

“I thought it prudent to pause. I mean, consider my situation. A tenderfoot, pinned to the spot, unschooled in the ways of the wild …”

Caleb snorted, “Ya think?”

“Uh huh! Me, a 250-pound human dressed in red plaid, standing there, as a beast five times my size and bulk took an unwanted interest in me.”

“Think he was … horny?” asked Caleb with a sly grin.

“Very funny. I did wonder what to do. Freeze in place and hope he wouldn’t see me? Turn and walk quickly down the trail? Run away, screaming for my life?”

Some of the other guests and cowboys had come back from their ride now and were starting to gather around.

“Jake,” asked Caleb, “did you think that maybe you just might be in danger?”

“I dunno, I wasn’t sure. I recalled what a friend had told me about handling sudden encounters with bears.”

One of the cowboys chuckled and snarked. “Y’all get a lot of bears in Baltimore?”

Jake looked hurt. “My friend knows things. He said, if I ever come upon a bear on a trail, I should raise my hands above my head, holler at the top of my lungs, and run right at him. Bears don’t see so good, you know, so he’ll think you’re real darn tall and get scared.”

“You thought you could frighten a bear, or a moose?” Al asked. “You’re really not a scary fella, Jake.”

“I know, right? I clean teeth for a living. I had to admit that this advice didn’t seem prudent. I watched his huge goddamn nostrils twitch and sniff. Seemed curious. And, well, almost friendly.”

“Oh, Lord.”

“He was my first moose, and I’ll bet you I was his first human.”

“Aw, that’s sweet,” drawled one of the cowboys. “Were y’all able to braid each other’s hair or check his teeth for plaque?”

They all cracked up. Jake was the kind of guy who put the “dude” in dude ranch.

“The wind was in my face, blowing from the moose toward me. Perhaps that big fella couldn’t smell me. But how could he miss my red checked hat and jacket, designed to convince other hunters that I was not a deer? I mean, everyone knows that red enrages bulls, right?”

“I’m pretty sure that’s not a thing. And it’s not that kind of bull,” said Al. “But maybe mooses don’t see so good, either.”

“That’s not the plural form,” said Jake.

“What?”

“Mooses. The plural of moose is moose, not mooses.”

“That’s fucking crazy. So the plural of caboose is caboose? What kind of a language is this?”

Jake closed his eyes and sucked in a deep, cleansing breath as they all waited.

“After a few long seconds, the moose trotted off. I grabbed a last snap of his moose butt disappearing behind the trees, then I stumble-ran down the trail to the ranch. And here we are.”

“Huh,” said Caleb. “That’s a good way to get killed, buddy. Moose aren’t all that cuddly. Mature bulls can run 1500 pounds, maybe more. On a whim, they could charge and stomp you.”

“Yeah, well, I wanted a close-up, and I only had a wide-angle lens.”

“And we almost had one less guest for dinner,” said Caleb, as they all laughed.

Jake persisted. “I mean, it’s just a big deer, right?”

Caleb looked at him, openmouthed and amazed. “U-m-m-m … Y-e-a-h, a really huge fuckin’ deer. But hey, it’s not Bambi. Any moose would eat you if you piss him off.”

“Do they really eat people? I thought they mostly ate rats and vermin.”

“Nah,” chuckled Caleb. “Only in Baltimore. Out here, they’re herbivores and they’re ornery. They eat thistles, not locoweed. And they’re not mellow.”

“I thought we made a connection.”

“Listen, Jake, if you see a moose again, don’t try to make friends. Don’t worry about your stupid pictures. Just get the fuck out of there.”

“Or, remember y’all,” said one of the cowboys, “There’s also the Five-Step Solution.”

“What’s that?”

“When you come upon a moose, Jake,” said the cowboy, getting in his face. “Step 1: Get as close as you can, like this, and stare him down. Step 2: Move slowly around the moose, maintaining eye contact, till you find a large log. Step 3: Sit on the log and spread your legs. Step 4: Wave your red hat in the moose’s face, tap him on the nose, and yell nasty stuff at him.”

]]>http://www.billzarchy.com/blog/moose-encounter/feed/0Reading a NEW Story at Comedy Showcasehttp://www.billzarchy.com/blog/reading-a-new-story-at-comedy-showcase/
http://www.billzarchy.com/blog/reading-a-new-story-at-comedy-showcase/#respondFri, 12 Jan 2018 06:32:24 +0000http://www.billzarchy.com/blog/?p=1036 I’ll be reading a NEW story called “Moose Encounter” at a reunion of the comedy writing class I took at Berkeley Rep.

Everyone enjoys a good laugh. What’s even better is creating that laugh!

Join us as students of Arje Shaw’s “Writing Funny” workshop at Berkeley Rep Theater School and Osher Life Learning Institute (OLLI) read excerpts of their work.

Come for a great evening of fun and laughter. BYOB will make it funnier!

Arje Shaw is best known for his play The Gathering, produced on Broadway in 2001 starring Hal Linden, following the Off–Broadway production starring Theodore Bikel and Jesse Eisenberg. His first play, A Catered Affair, was produced Off–Broadway in 1994 at the Madison Avenue Playhouse. Magic Hands Freddy, featuring Michael Rispoli and Ralph Maccio was produced at the Soho Playhouse in in 2004. His debut novel The Fix was published in 2011 and his latest play, Moolah is scheduled to open Off–Broadway in 2018. Mr. Shaw teaches comedy writing at The Berkeley Rep Theater School, and Osher Life Learning Institute.

About two years ago, I went to a storytelling event at The Marsh in Berkeley and watched six people tell six very different stories. Some personal, some historical, all about 10-15 minutes long.

My first reaction: I can do that.

Little did I know.

The tellers were all from Stagebridge, a Senior Theatre Company housed in an old church in Oakland, so I started taking storytelling classes there. Stagebridge also offers courses in acting, directing, singing, dancing, and many other kinds of performance. It’s the only “senior” thing I’ve ever done. But close friends, both recently retired psychologists, have found new passions in performance at Stagebridge, and, so I dove in.

About two years ago, I went to a storytelling event at The Marsh in Berkeley and watched six people tell six very different stories. Some personal, some historical, all about 10-15 minutes long.

My first reaction: I can do that.

Little did I know.

The tellers were all from Stagebridge, a Senior Theatre Company housed in an old church in Oakland, so I started taking storytelling classes there. Stagebridge also offers courses in acting, directing, singing, dancing, and many other kinds of performance. It’s the only “senior” thing I’ve ever done. But close friends, both recently retired psychologists, have found new passions in performance at Stagebridge, and, so I dove in.

I’m a big fan of “The Moth,” the NPR show, and the storytelling of travel writer Jeff Greenwald. I’ve always liked reading my written stories in public. I saw storytelling as a way to extend that fun with different audiences. But it’s not as easy as I thought it would be, because it’s all done without notes or text.

At first I tried reading some traditional/folk tales to myself and then trying to deliver them in class, adhering as closely as possible to the words I had read. Then I tried to convert some of my own written stories for oral delivery. The tendency for newbies like me, especially writers, is to want to memorize and reproduce the pearly prose I put on paper. That’s not how they teach it at Stagebridge.

It’s more about learning/knowing the story, absorbing it, and telling it in your own words. My new approach, either with a folk/historical tale or something I’ve written myself, is to read it through out loud a few times, then make a bullet-point outline, then stop looking at the text and start “telling” it out loud, in a room by myself or out on a walk, referring occasionally to the outline, but not to the text.

It’s verbal jazz, never the same twice. With each telling, I find that some details take on new importance, and some get left out. I’ve learned to ignore my flubbed words without beating myself up. Sometimes I realize I’ve forgotten to say something, and I deftly try to drop it in without missing a beat.

It’s always vital to have a beginning, a middle, and an end. Characterization is important, dialogue adds depth and color. Eschewed: She told me she wanted to kill me. Preferred: She said, “I want to kill you.”

My wonderful teachers Kirk Waller and MaryGay Ducey also stress vocal variation in pitch, volume, and speed of delivery. Just like acting!

Along with fellow student Eleanor Clement Glass (see the video of her performance below), I told two of my stories last week at the Lunchtime Storytelling event at Stagebridge, my first time telling outside of class. What an experience!

The first story I told (“Evelyn’s Story”—see video above) is cherished by my family and was based on an experience my aunt and uncle had some years ago. She wrote it up in great detail (12 single-spaced pages). When I decided a couple of months ago that I wanted to tell this story, I wrote a bullet-point outline based on how I remembered it. I haven’t gone back to read or cross-check anything with her text. I recalled the broad strokes. Since I needed to tell this story in about 12 or 13 minutes today, I wanted a simple structure that was easy to accomplish, and I didn’t want to fill my head with a ton of extra detail.

That’s definitely part of the discipline of oral storytelling. In a limited amount of time, try to tell a tale, entertain the audience, pluck their heartstrings, get them to laugh, add pauses for drama and emphasis, and play with the tempo and rhythm. It really is a performance, much more than I ever thought before I started down this road.

Last week I also extended my comfort zone in an unanticipated direction: I sang in public for the first time.

In the second story I told, based on a written work/travel story (“Sweet Home Shenyang” from my book Showdown at Shinagawa: Tales of Filming from Bombay to Brazil), I quote lyrics from five different songs near the end of the story. I’ve read this story a number of times in public, reciting but not singing the song lyrics in a rousing, energetic ending. But when I first told this story in a storytelling class last semester, my teacher, in her feedback, suggested that I sing the lines from the songs.

Never in a million years did I ever think I would sing in public, but something happened at our synagogue a few weeks ago that changed my mind.

My wife Susan, who has a lovely voice and sings in three choruses and a barbershop quartet, was scheduled to chant from the Torah at a Bat Mitzvah one Saturday morning around the time of my 70th birthday. At Sabbath Torah readings, it’s standard practice to divide the reading into seven parts and to honor members of the congregation, in seven groups or aliyahs, by inviting them up onto the bima to chant a brief Hebrew prayer before and after the Torah reading.

The rabbi, knowing I was celebrating a milestone birthday in a few days, kindly offered me the first aliyah, and I agreed. Then I started to wonder if that was a good idea. I wasn’t concerned about knowing the Hebrew words, because they’re pretty simple, they’re chanted seven times at every Shabbat service, and the rabbis have a large-print cheat-sheet transliteration right there.

But I did wonder if I would feel comfortable singing anything, all by myself, in front of the 200 people in the sanctuary. I could not escape the haunting words of Victor Wong, the leader of my fraternity chorus in college, who told me, “Don’t sing so loudly, you sound like a braying mule.”

Well, that buzzkill lasted for decades. I never wanted to sing again. But the curse of Victor Wong, which has plagued me for nearly 50 years, was expunged that day in temple. I was fine.

Empowered by a good night’s sleep and inspired by the fact that my dear wife was standing next to me and about to chant something much more melodic, much more extensive, and much more complicated, I sang the simple melody, “Baruch et adonai hamvorach!” (Praised be the One to whom our praise is due!) This was followed by a 15-second call-and-response thing with the congregation, then Susan read from the Torah for several minutes, then I had to chant a final blessing. I performed my very small part with gusto, and, I believe, with decent pitch and tone.

Listen, I don’t think I’m gonna give Bono a run for his money in the solo singing department. If I weren’t already retired, I definitely wouldn’t give up my day job. But that experience at synagogue gave me enough confidence to try to sing the few scattered lyrics in my story, and I did so today. I think it worked out.

Susan recorded last week’s Lunchtime Storytelling on video and has posted my stories on YouTube.

I’ll let you judge my singing in the context of my storytelling. I hope you’ll enjoy the experience. I did.

Learning how to tell stories is an ancient craft, difficult to master.

I’ve been very excited for the past year to learn oral storytelling—not reading my written stories, not memorizing lines, but knowing a story, absorbing it, then telling it in my own words, without script or notes.

It’s kind of a verbal jazz, different every time, and more challenging than I could have imagined.

Come hear my first “telling” outside of class (along with fellow student Eleanor Clement Glass). Some of the stories will be funny, some poignant, all heartfelt.

Learning how to tell stories is an ancient craft, difficult to master.

I’ve been very excited for the past year to learn oral storytelling—not reading my written stories, not memorizing lines, but knowing a story, absorbing it, then telling it in my own words, without script or notes.

It’s kind of a verbal jazz, different every time, and more challenging than I could have imagined.

Come hear my first “telling” outside of class (along with fellow student Eleanor Clement Glass). Some of the stories will be funny, some poignant, all heartfelt.

It takes place tomorrow, Thursday March 16 at noon at Stagebridge, at the First Congregational Church, 2501 Harrison Street, Oakland CA 94612. It’s in the Basement Room, which can be accessed directly from the sidewalk on Harrison Street. Plan to come early, as parking can be difficult in the neighborhood. Fun guaranteed!

Lilycat, aka Melinda Adams, hosts a weekly show, called “Lilycat on Stuff,” every Sunday at noon. Once a month, she hosts authors like myself from Left Coast Writers.

FCC Free Radio, an Internet-based radio station, is home to over 50 original programs each week, that produce more than 1,000,000 listeners per month. Melinda recorded the whole broadcast, . . . CONTINUE READING: Listen to My Interview on FCC Free Radio]]>

Lilycat, aka Melinda Adams, hosts a weekly show, called “Lilycat on Stuff,” every Sunday at noon. Once a month, she hosts authors like myself from Left Coast Writers.

FCC Free Radio, an Internet-based radio station, is home to over 50 original programs each week, that produce more than 1,000,000 listeners per month. Melinda recorded the whole broadcast, which is now available as a podcast.

FCCFREE RADIO opened in July 2008 as a pirate radio station at 107.3 FM with 3 shows and a dream to be San Francisco’s number one radio station, but the FCC came and told them NO!! So FFR transformed into San Francisco’s #1 designation for podcasting and internet broadcasting.

When Google calls you an “Iconic Staple of San Francisco” and a “Frontrunner in Internet Broadcasting” there must be a reason! Tune in and find out why.

FFR has podcasts that range from talk, comedy, sex, health, politics, sports, indie, hip hop , classic rock and back again. We have some of the best radio talent in San Francisco, They are hosting some of the best radio you have ever heard! They also have the first host that did internet broadcasting of comedy. John Miller has the “Longest Running Podcast” The John Miller Program. This show started in 1997.

]]>http://www.billzarchy.com/blog/listen-to-my-interview-on-fcc-free-radio/feed/0‘SHOWDOWN at SHINAGAWA’ Book Party on October 8http://www.billzarchy.com/blog/showdown-at-shinagawa-book-party-on-october-8/
http://www.billzarchy.com/blog/showdown-at-shinagawa-book-party-on-october-8/#respondFri, 23 Sep 2016 04:47:34 +0000http://www.billzarchy.com/blog/?p=1009Wine • Cheese • Stories • Fun PLEASE COME TO MY BOOK PARTY

I am a member of Left Coast Writers, and they are sponsoring the party. Come join us for a celebration with wine and cheese.

SHOWDOWN features 18 tales. We go along for the ride on a darkly funny bus trip down India’s deadly Bombay-Pune Road in “Wrecks and Pissers,” schlep through the disorienting milieu of one of . . . CONTINUE READING: ‘SHOWDOWN at SHINAGAWA’ Book Party on October 8]]>

I am a member of Left Coast Writers, and they are sponsoring the party. Come join us for a celebration with wine and cheese.

SHOWDOWN features 18 tales. We go along for the ride on a darkly funny bus trip down India’s deadly Bombay-Pune Road in “Wrecks and Pissers,” schlep through the disorienting milieu of one of Singapore’s high-tech cleanrooms in “No Worry, Chicken Curry,” face a surreal Japanese bowling-for-budget match in the title story “Showdown at Shinagawa,” and share the challenge of filming former President Clinton while dealing with family tragedy in “Dog Years.” And so on, across six continents, over three decades of my work as a director of photography.

Left Coast Writers was created to support new and established writers in the production and promotion of their work in a stimulating atmosphere of creativity and community.

The writers meet monthly at Book Passage at the Left Coast Writers Literary Salon for lively evenings with an amazing roster of guest speakers on the subjects of non-fiction, long and short fiction, poetry, publishing, marketing, writer-agent relationships and more.

Sao Paulo, Brazil 2011

]]>http://www.billzarchy.com/blog/showdown-at-shinagawa-book-party-on-october-8/feed/0How to Succeed in the Film Business While Really, Really Tryinghttp://www.billzarchy.com/blog/how-to-succeed-in-the-film-business-while-really-really-trying-2/
http://www.billzarchy.com/blog/how-to-succeed-in-the-film-business-while-really-really-trying-2/#respondWed, 21 Sep 2016 00:55:31 +0000http://www.billzarchy.com/blog/?p=1006

An old friend from the East Coast contacted me recently to see if I had any career advice for her friends’ son, a recent film school graduate who was trying make it as a filmmaker in New York City. I told my friend that, though my experience as a freelance crew person in the Bay Area wasn’t directly applicable to his efforts at finding production clients in New York, I would be happy to offer some general advice. Here it is.

Hi,

Nice to hear from you. As I explained to our mutual friend, I’m not sure how to advise you, other than telling you a bit about my career.

An old friend from the East Coast contacted me recently to see if I had any career advice for her friends’ son, a recent film school graduate who was trying make it as a filmmaker in New York City. I told my friend that, though my experience as a freelance crew person in the Bay Area wasn’t directly applicable to his efforts at finding production clients in New York, I would be happy to offer some general advice. Here it is.

Hi,

Nice to hear from you. As I explained to our mutual friend, I’m not sure how to advise you, other than telling you a bit about my career.

A little background:

Though I grew up on Long Island, I’m not too familiar with the world of production in New York City, having worked my entire career in the SF Bay Area market. I did do some shooting in New York at times, but primarily for California-based clients, usually Silicon Valley companies. And I worked as a freelance director of photography, not producing films as a production company, so my advice will be pretty general.

After graduating from Dartmouth with a major in government, I taught high school for two years in Vermont, then applied to several film schools. I got into one, at Stanford, and emigrated to California for good. Stanford was great. Small program. The one production teacher at that time had been a rerecording mixer at the National Film Board of Canada, and, though he didn’t know too much about lighting and camerawork, he taught us a lot about sound and professionalism, and those were the lessons that stuck.

After Stanford, I freelanced in the Bay Area for nine years, then took a (very rare) staff job as a DP for One Pass Film and Video in SF (now defunct). Here I learned about working as a DP (rather than a one-man band with a camera on my shoulder), video production (I had been all film up till then), multi-camera productions, sound stage work, etc. When One Pass realized they had a maturing work force who were having babies and demanding more and more benefits, they encouraged all of us staff production workers to leave (without layoffs), and promised to hire us back as freelancers.

Mostly they did so, until the place burned down a few years after I left. But because One Pass was such a huge place (about 75 employees at its peak) with a large client base and multiple shoots per day, every day, I got to know everyone in town while I worked there, and that set of contacts served me well for the next 20+ years. I retired about a year and a half ago.

When I was teaching at San Francisco State and other places, I encouraged my students to develop websites to showcase and publicize themselves and their work, especially early on when it was not common for everyone to have a site (I set up my first web page in 1999-2000). In those days, it was still important to have a demo reel or show reel you could hand to someone on a tape or a DVD, but obviously that’s not as important now, as long as your work is viewable online.

As of course you know, social media are very important in the current scheme of things. Any company should have a Facebook page, and perhaps a Twitter feed and an Instagram presence as well (one of my kids told me the other day that I’m really a millennial in boomer’s clothing, which I took as a compliment).

In terms of how to find work and clients, of course you’ll have to figure that out in your market. When you do get clients, especially good one who do work that looks terrific and/or have decent budgets, cultivate them. Wow them with your hard work, your great attitude, your creative and exciting results. Court them. Take them to lunch or dinner, send them presents, make them feel special. One good client can supply you and your company (especially while you’re still small) with steady work for a long time. Get to know them and stay in touch. At appropriate moments, ask them about themselves. Make notes about their kids’ and spouses’ names and special events, contact them at special times, stay in touch between projects, call them to show them your newest and best work for others.

Early in my career, I sent out resumes (with cover letters) by snail mail, to everyone I met whom I thought might hire someone with my skills. And, though it was difficult, I made lots of cold calls, to people I didn’t know, trying to get to show them my demo reel. When I first went abroad to do some shooting, I made sure to keep samples of the work (not easy in the old days of film prints, which were expensive to make copies of).

Later, when I left One Pass, I made a mailing list of nearly everyone I knew in the business, made up a flier (about the fact that I was going freelance again), and sent it to the whole list. I tried to make it creative and funny, and it got a good reaction. Years later, people told me they remembered that mailing, mostly because, in the middle of a list of laudatory comments about me, I quoted a real letter from a client saying, with tongue in cheek, that I was “one of the most obnoxious and anxiety-ridden individuals I have ever had to work with.”

Over the next few years, I sent out several similar mailings, each with a good attitude and a sense of humor. People like to have fun, and promo materials can be terribly dry and boring, even when they’re well-crafted films and/or beautiful footage. About five years after One Pass, I was hired to do a shoot on six continents (ten countries) over a seven-week period.

I bought an Arri camera for that project and afterward sent out a mailing to 800 of my closest friends that said “Bill Zarchy Finally Bought a Camera … and He’s Already Schlepped It Around the World,” complete with photos, a map of our travels, a prose description of the project, and a resume, all in a four-page B/W mailer. That kind of thing attracted attention. I’m sure you get the idea.

Do everything you can to network. Go to industry events, stay up on all the latest gear, hand out business cards, develop an email list, send out regular reports to that list about what you’re working on, including links to clips of your films. Stay in touch with others you know who do what you do. A good amount of my work as a DP came on referrals from other DPs, who gave out my name when they were called for jobs they couldn’t do. If you’re in the position of recommending someone for a job you can’t do yourself, remember that how well that other person works out is a reflection on you. So when others recommend you, make them glad they did.

As much as you can, try to be patient. Believe that if you work hard and do good work, you’ll succeed. Of course, that’s easy for me to tell you from 3000 miles away as you’re trying to pay the rent and keep going with a startup production company. It took me several years to get established as a DP. I did work as a camera assistant for a while, but I refused to do sound and grip work, choosing to stay in the camera department. I also bought my first camera (a CP-16R) early on, and I found that owning a camera gave me street cred as a shooter. Think about what might work to give you credibility as a production company in a similar way.

I was also fortunate to meet the woman whom I would eventually marry, while we were both in film school at Stanford. When we graduated, she started to freelance as an editor, and we learned an eternal truth: a short shoot, even a one-day shoot, can supply days, weeks, or even months of editing work. So Susan provided the bulk of our income for the first few years, which helped me get established as a DP. And I didn’t have to be a grip or drive a cab.

One more thing: unless you go to work for someone else on a “real job,” meaning a staff position at a company, your parents will never really understand what you do. Or who you work for. I used to tell people that I was like a plumber. People called me when their sinks dripped or their toilets broke (figuratively speaking). They needed a job done, and I usually worked for them for a short time. Hopefully they’ll call you again, the next time they have a problem with their toilets or sinks.

But after I had been getting by as a freelance cinematographer for nine years, thinking my loving, wonderfully supportive parents understood my career, I was hired as the staff DP at One Pass. A short time later, one of my folks’ friends told me, “Oh, your mother is so relieved that you finally have a job!” One of the hardest thing for a parent (or anyone!) to grok about freelancing is that, if you don’t work, you don’t get paid. Neither of my kids wanted a freelance life. One is a school speech therapist. The other’s a lawyer. Many, many of my jobs lasted one day.

I hope this helps a bit. I was very lucky to meet some great people early on in my career, some directors who took me along on fantastic journeys, both creatively and travel-wise. I shot concerts with the Grateful Dead and Weird Al, interviewed six presidents, and got to travel the world and meet and work with people in many countries. One of my very few regrets about retiring is that I don’t get to see my friends in the business very often. Film people are amazingly bright and creative and fun. It can be a very rewarding life, and I wish you all the best.

I’ve written a book about my work and travels, called Showdown at Shinagawa: Tales of Filming from Bombay to Brazil. Send me your address, and I’ll send you a copy. It’s not really about finding work or freelancing, but you might find some of it relevant or interesting. And do stay in touch and let me know how you’re doing.

There you can choose a Player (for Studio 1A) from the choices in the upper right corner of the page. This should allow you to listen to the show live.
After Sunday, the entire show will be posted online as a podcast. I’ll send out that link when I get it.

“Lilycat on Stuff” is a weekly show, replete with “music (show tunes, punk, local, and weirdly found) played in-between conversations with some of the most unique characters from diverse communities. We laugh, we cry, we learn stuff.”

As we pass the 30-year mark in our home next week, the tall tree in the right rear corner of the yard, an Incense Cedar, stands tall and true, more than twice the height of the house.

When we moved in, there were two tall trees. The left rear corner held a Monterey Pine, so enormous and overgrown that many low branches reached 25 feet across the yard to touch our deck. Others extended over our neighbor’s fence, then across her yard, to rest on the opposite fence on the far side.

The pine was a happy, magnificent, giant forest tree, but clearly it lived in the wrong part of the world. The neighbor remembered that the pine had . . . CONTINUE READING: Incense Cedar]]>

As we pass the 30-year mark in our home next week, the tall tree in the right rear corner of the yard, an Incense Cedar, stands tall and true, more than twice the height of the house.

When we moved in, there were two tall trees. The left rear corner held a Monterey Pine, so enormous and overgrown that many low branches reached 25 feet across the yard to touch our deck. Others extended over our neighbor’s fence, then across her yard, to rest on the opposite fence on the far side.

The pine was a happy, magnificent, giant forest tree, but clearly it lived in the wrong part of the world. The neighbor remembered that the pine had been a smallish living Christmas tree that the previous owners of our house had plunked into the ground just a dozen years before. The neighbor and I removed 20 huge, low limbs with a pruning saw one day shortly after we moved in, then we had a tree guy come in and take off another 15 higher limbs. A few years later, another tree tried to remove the pine, which by then was over 60 feet tall and continuing to grow rapidly, but he couldn’t deal with its massiveness in our smallish suburban backyard.

Eventually a different pair of tree guys—who climbed like monkeys, wielded wicked chain saws, and lowered limbs with pulleys and ropes—vanquished the pine. It ended up as a scatter of stump seats, a pile of firewood, and a thick layer of chips in our front and back yards (which reminds me of what pig farmers say about their livestock—they use everything but the squeal).

The Incense Cedar, however, still stands in the other corner of the yard. For a while, we tried to grow vegetables underneath, but the cedar spewed needles that stuck to our lettuce and acidified our soil. When we invested in solar power, the installers pointed out that the cedar had grown scruffy and loomed out over the new panels. “You’ll generate a lot more power if you prune that darn tree,” they counseled.

And so we did. I thought we should top the tree, cut it down from the top by a third. But this time we hired an arborist, a true, trained, tree professional whose first concern was the health of the tree. He came in with a crew of four Guatemalan Mayans, who shinnied up the cedar, rigged ropes and slings, pruned raggedy branches, and trimmed with great skill. They shaped the tree beautifully, reduced its height by a little and its mass by a lot, then installed a thin steel cable to prevent the two outer trunks from spreading apart and splitting. All in about half a day.

For the last dozen years, my office has faced the backyard, and I grabbed some video shots of this tree crew in action from the office door (SEE VIDEO BELOW). As they worked, I was treated to the powerful scent of newly sharpened pencils, as Incense Cedar is the most common pencil wood. Ever since then, every time I sharpen a pencil, the aroma brings me back to that day.

With the cedar reduced in size and mass, more light falls on the solar panels, and more light gets through to the glass blocks set high in the wall in our family room. So much, in fact, that we have had to add a window shade over those blocks, to control the sunlight in our eyes when we sit at our table late in the day.

For me, the Incense Cedar and our west-facing back yard’s orientation are my personal Stonehenge, my own solar calendar to mark the passage of the days throughout the year. I sit in my office, stare out the sliding door toward the yard as I try to write, and marvel in the change of seasons.

Does the sun actually set in the west? Well yes, sort of. I know that in winter, the sun rises, describes a shallow arc over our neighbor’s fence (to my left) on the south side of the yard, and sets well south of west. As winter advances into spring, the sun gets higher in the sky each day and sets further north, closer and closer to due west. For only one day of the year, it will go down at due west, exactly 270 degrees on the compass.

After that, it sets further and further north of west each day. At its farthest point, the sun sets so far north of west that it meets the horizon to the right of the Incense Cedar. That’s how I know it’s midsummer.

Video of a presentation by Bill Zarchy at Northbrae Community Church, Berkeley, California on 2/3/16.

The author reads excerpts from four of the stories in his book, Showdown at Shinagawa: Tales of Filming from Bombay to Brazil.” He also discusses the ins and outs of self-publishing, as well as his background as a globe-trotting cinematographer.

The stories read:

“Starstruck at Cannes: Morgan Freeman on the Red Carpet”

“21st Century Village: Telemedicine in Rural India”

“Dog Years: Sophie, Pop, and Bill Clinton”

“Shanghai Lunch”

Please note: Video is from an iPad. Sound level is low, but audible. Crank it up!

]]>

Video of a presentation by Bill Zarchy at Northbrae Community Church, Berkeley, California on 2/3/16.

The author reads excerpts from four of the stories in his book, Showdown at Shinagawa: Tales of Filming from Bombay to Brazil.” He also discusses the ins and outs of self-publishing, as well as his background as a globe-trotting cinematographer.

The stories read:

“Starstruck at Cannes: Morgan Freeman on the Red Carpet”

“21st Century Village: Telemedicine in Rural India”

“Dog Years: Sophie, Pop, and Bill Clinton”

“Shanghai Lunch”

Please note: Video is from an iPad. Sound level is low, but audible. Crank it up!

]]>http://www.billzarchy.com/blog/showcasing-showdown-at-shinagawa-the-video/feed/0Bangkok, the Saudis, and the Jism Ballshttp://www.billzarchy.com/blog/bangkok-the-saudis-and-the-jism-balls/
http://www.billzarchy.com/blog/bangkok-the-saudis-and-the-jism-balls/#respondTue, 16 Feb 2016 00:35:01 +0000http://www.billzarchy.com/blog/?p=962Sunset over the Chao Phraya River in Bangkok

“I’m hungry,” said Randy, as we set up a sunset shot from the overpass near the end of our first day on the ground. “We need something to eat.”

“Or other places. I think everything’s very fresh here. When you buy something, it’s usually been made just minutes before.”

Larry crossed to the other side of the pedestrian bridge, past a mutilated street beggar, to one of several food carts there. We resumed setting the camera for a shot of traffic below on Sukhumvit Avenue near our Bangkok hotel.

Two men walked up and caught Randy’s eye. “Are you people Americans?” asked the larger, more prosperous-looking guy.

I looked up from the camera as Rod adjusted the focus for our shot and Conrad set up his mic. The strangers didn’t look Thai. “Why?” Randy asked.

He regarded us with a big smile and open arms. “We are from Saudi Arabia. We L-O-V-E you people!” The smaller guy behind him said nothing, but beamed a beatific smile.

Larry returned with a bag of stuff from the food cart. We looked inside. It was filled with golden fried spheres of something piping hot.

“Tell me, my friend,” asked the larger Saudi man. “Do you have any of the new $100 bills?”

Randy looked at him with a quizzical expression, then reached into the bag. He incautiously picked out a piping hot golden fried sphere and popped it whole into his mouth.

Showdown features 18 tales, from the surreal Japanese bowling-for-budget match in the title story, to commiseration with President Clinton over family tragedies in “Dog Years,” to a bus trip down India’s deadly Bombay-Pune Road in “Wrecks and Pissers.”

Showdown features 18 tales, from the surreal Japanese bowling-for-budget match in the title story, to commiseration with President Clinton over family tragedies in “Dog Years,” to a bus trip down India’s deadly Bombay-Pune Road in “Wrecks and Pissers.”

I’ll be describing the relative ease of self-publishing, compared with the challenge of getting noticed among over one million books published in the U.S. each year.

My talk is part of a monthly Community Dinner and speaker series and takes place at

The third in the Pantheon of Zarchy Family Dogs, she follows, in succession, Sophie the Wonder Dog and Montana Banana Zarchy, all of them delicious sources of unqualified love.

Molly is eight months old, about 45 lbs., a super-cute Boxer mix with light fawn-and-white coloring and a longer snout than the typical purebred Boxer. She was a stray found in another part of the state, without tags or microchip, then rescued from a “high-kill” shelter by the fine folks at Milo Foundation in Point Richmond. We adopted her two weeks ago, and she is making an easy transition from pound pup to pampered pooch.

(Kudos to the Milo people, BTW, who rescue over 1500 animals per year.)

The third in the Pantheon of Zarchy Family Dogs, she follows, in succession, Sophie the Wonder Dog and Montana Banana Zarchy, all of them delicious sources of unqualified love.

Molly is eight months old, about 45 lbs., a super-cute Boxer mix with light fawn-and-white coloring and a longer snout than the typical purebred Boxer. She was a stray found in another part of the state, without tags or microchip, then rescued from a “high-kill” shelter by the fine folks at Milo Foundation in Point Richmond. We adopted her two weeks ago, and she is making an easy transition from pound pup to pampered pooch.

(Kudos to the Milo people, BTW, who rescue over 1500 animals per year.)

Molly makes herself right at home.

I didn’t always love dogs. When I was six, my dad realized that I was afraid of dogs, because my mom was scared of dogs and her mom was scared of dogs.

So we got a dog, a little Fox Terrier mutt named Honey, who was sweet and soft and cuddly and shed like a husky. Despite her size, she was famous as a fierce watchdog who came tearing through our house when the doorbell rang, sliding the last few feet on a throw rug, barking at whatever intruder dared to approach the house.

One day Mr. Wolfe, our mailman, arrived as usual. He had seen Honey slide wildly toward him many times, but this day she was feeling more intense or her timing was off. She came running from the back of the house, reached the polished floor of the front room, slid forward on the throw rug, and CRASH! smashed through the window on the side of the front door. Glass flew everywhere. Honey was uninjured, but my mom noticed that the mailman was bleeding from his hand.

As Honey continued to yap, Mom asked Mr. Wolfe to come in, so she could bandage his hand. For some reason he declined.

Honey was the subject of the first photo I can remember taking, the first picture I remember printing in my dad’s dark room. I loved the smell of those chemicals, and I can recall seeing her image appear as if by magic on the paper in the tray of developer.

Honey died when I was in high school, my first experience with losing a close family member. I cried for several days, even though that wasn’t cool for a high school kid.

My wife Susan also grew up with a dog, an Irish Setter-hound mix named Tippy, and we knew that when we had kids and settled down, we wanted a family pooch.

Sophie Dophie the Wonder Dog.

Sophie always made herself at home too.

A couple of years after we moved to the East Bay, we adopted Sophie off the street in Berkeley from someone who was giving away puppies. She was tiny, about eight weeks old, and grew into a large Boxer-Lab mix, pushing 90 lbs., the sweetest, friendliest, most loving dog in our little town. With the hugest, friendliest tongue around. Every kid we passed on the street, even those we didn’t know, would stop to greet her, pet her, and get a thorough tongue-y wetdown in greeting. A complete social butterfly, she rarely barked, making her a hopeless watchdog, despite her size.

Montana B. Zarchy.

The people at Milo told us Montana was a Rotweiler-Shepherd mix (though she never grew larger than 55 lbs.), when we adopted her off the sidewalk at one of their mobile adoption events in Berkeley. She was about 3-1/2 months old and had already suffered emotional damage in her young life, abused or abandoned by someone. Still groggy from her recent spaying, she was too timid to walk to the car with us, and the timidity continued for years, as we dealt with her fears of people, cars, bikes, skateboards, kids, bright sun, wind … you name it. Eventually, loads of love and training helped her overcome these obstacles and become a friendly companion, though a bit wary of strangers. She was a good watchdog, barking at anyone who came to the house, but happily greeting friends once their identity was established.

Monta poses for animal crackers.

Both Sophie and Montana lived for 13 years, and a few months after each left this planet, we sought another loving pet.

Molly is our latest. She has winning ways, loves humans and canines, lopes and prances and galumphs around with a special, graceful, athletic clumsiness for which Boxers are famous, enjoys leaning heavily on her people, often plays by standing on her back legs and boxing with her front paws.

She has a lot to learn about where to “do her business,” how to come/sit/stay on command, why it’s not a good idea to jump on people, pull on the leash with all her strength, dig up the garden, or eat the plants. We’ve enrolled her in a training class at Milo for four sessions and will follow up with a five-class course at BravoPup in December.

Dogs love this kind of reward training, where they get doggy treats for doing things right. We feel strongly that owners have a responsibility to train their dogs and keep them under control. Sophie was huge, but certainly rambunctious, medium-sized dogs like Molly or Montana can knock over a kid or even an adult, and it’s our job, as their humans, to teach them the rules and keep them under control.

So far, so good with Molly. She’s only had two accidents in the past week in our quest to get her housebroken, her leash training is going well, and she does seem eager to do the right thing.

Most of the time. Sometimes she forgets and commits a verboten act. At times like those, it’s our job to be patient and forgiving, not negative and angry. Of course I definitely don’t like stepping in poop just before bedtime, but it’s usually easy to stay positive. She’s just so darn cute.

One autumn about a million years ago, I was living with friends in Vermont, teaching high school, avoiding conscription, and just starting my California Dreaming.

We lived on a farm on a dirt road off another dirt road. The farm didn’t grow anything. The owners lived on Guam, used it only as a summer house, and were dumb enough to have rented it to four just-out-of-Dartmouth, draft-dodging, occupational deferment, Vietnam-avoiding high school teachers.

They decided to rent it because they had been burglarized the year before when the house was empty and thought having someone live in it year-round would enhance security. They also installed a bright street light over the yard to ward off burglars.

One autumn about a million years ago, I was living with friends in Vermont, teaching high school, avoiding conscription, and just starting my California Dreaming.

We lived on a farm on a dirt road off another dirt road. The farm didn’t grow anything. The owners lived on Guam, used it only as a summer house, and were dumb enough to have rented it to four just-out-of-Dartmouth, draft-dodging, occupational deferment, Vietnam-avoiding high school teachers.

They decided to rent it because they had been burglarized the year before when the house was empty and thought having someone live in it year-round would enhance security. They also installed a bright street light over the yard to ward off burglars.

The farm consisted of 80 acres of beautiful, rolling Vermont hills, four streams, fields separated by stone fences, and a gentle hill to climb at sunset when the deer came out to feed. The total rent was $150 a month.

The farm was easy to find. From Windsor, where I was teaching, you drove a few paved miles to Hartland Three Corners, a tiny hamlet among verdant fields, then another few miles to Hartland Four Corners, even tinier. From there the rest of the trip was on dirt. You took the Hartland-Quechee Road toward Quechee, and after a few miles, you turned left at the Van Vlack place. Everyone knew where that was, and if they didn’t, you could remind them it was the place that had the barn fire, but they were able to get all the horses out, thank God.

When I told locals where I lived and described how to get there, they would nod sagely and say, “Oh, the old Proctor Place.” Really old locals called it the Patch place, though the Patches had sold and left more than a half century before. We thought of it as the Bacon place, the name of the folks who rented to us, and they called it Merienda Farms. Probably named after their grandchildren.

It was idyllic the first few months. As the weather grew cold, Nature displayed a splendid pallet of fall colors, an ever-changing, constantly ripening panoply of richly saturated earth tones. The maples put out the most impressive plumage, the sugar maples the deepest reds of all.

Then the inevitable happened. The weather turned colder, the freezes coming nightly. The lush leaves ran their course, dried up, died, and fell. The trees were bare, the grass dead, the cold omnipresent. Temperatures fell close to zero.

Snow fell from the sky, often quite a lot.

County snowplows worked their way up and down the curvy dirt roads. They took the Hartland-Quechee Road toward Quechee, turned left at the Van Vlack place, and kept the road clear all the way to our driveway. Two different local guys would show up to plow us out. One had a snowplow mounted on a big, butch Ford pickup and would come after smaller snowfalls. The other guy would appear on a huge road grader with a little cab perched on top when the snow drifted over six feet.

Only a lot of snow, a real buttload, would close down the local schools, despite our constant hope for snow days. But deep snow on weekends discouraged us from seeking fun in town, about 12-15 miles away.

One Saturday night, the residents of Merienda Farms grew restless. We could only get one TV channel, from Poland Spring, Maine. We were all tired of reading and playing music. And we were intoxicated, some kinda way. Probably a little too much booze or pot, or perhaps we dropped acid that night. It didn’t matter. What did matter was that we were all a bit tipsy when we decided to go out for a walk.

It was ten below, so cold that the mucus in my nose froze instantly when I walked outside. More snow arrived in flurries all around us. Despite the cold, it was a beautiful night, illuminated by a huge full moon, the air calm with the stillness that comes from extreme cold. All sounds were muffled by the presence of huge snowbanks around our yard. We ran around in the yard with a football for a few minutes, then found a break in the snowbanks that opened a path down to the creek in the valley just below the house.

Using the moonlight to guide us, we trudged down the path and separated at the bottom. The snowfall was several feet deep, and with each step my boots broke through the crust at the top and deep into the snow below. As I walked along, my tired brain saw myself as Yuri Zhivago, walking across Siberia to get back to Lara, the love of his life. But the love of my real life had dumped me a few months before, and I was pretty sure that trudging toward her would be a fool’s errand.

I walked behind a bank of trees, which blotted out the moonlight, but I could see a bright spot ahead and made for that. Keep on plodding, Yuri, and eventually you’ll get back to her. Keep plodding. My sense of time wobbled precariously, and I realized suddenly that I had been walking for days, or maybe even weeks, with little sign of progress. I had no choice except to keep walking as the snow fell around me. Forward was better than backward, and stopping was not an option. I’d freeze to death.

I reached the bright patch of moonlight. After the deeply shadowed area I had traversed behind the trees, the moon was amazingly bright. I looked around me and recognized nothing. I was lost. Irretrievably lost in a white landscape where everything looked the same. I was cold and knew I’d been exposed to the elements for quite a while. But I was young and immortal. And foolish.

“Hey, Z! We’re going in!”

My roommates were calling, but I couldn’t see them. I blinked and stopped and looked around me. The broad valley I had crossed was the stream below the house. Thick ice covered with deep snow. I had no experience walking on frozen bodies of water. A sudden, horrific vision of falling into the stream fought the euphoria of the intoxication. There was no way that could happen at ten below, but I didn’t know that. Snowflakes continued to fall and land on my hat and shoulders.

“Where are you?”

“Over here,” they answered. “Don’t stay out too long.”

I turned. The house was less than a hundred yards away, the bright moon close to the horizon and right in my eyes now, and I saw my friends heading back. I turned carefully, afraid of the ice cracking and giving way beneath me. My feet and fingertips were already cold. Snow had gotten into my boots as I broke through the crust.

Keep walking, Yuri. You’ll get there. She’ll still love you. Save those snowflakes on your jacket to show her when you arrive. They’re all unique, you know. She’ll love them.

I walked up the path from the creek to the yard and squinted at the bright light. It wasn’t the moon. It was the streetlight, of course. Why would the moon be out while it was snowing? How illogical.

I scampered across the yard, needing to get warm after our extended playtime in extreme weather. I looked at my watch as I burst through the front door. About 14 minutes had elapsed in the eternity since we’d gone out.

I kicked off my boots and began to massage my feet. My friends passed brandy. Lara would have to wait. First I had to save my toes.

Weekday Wanderlust is a free monthly program where three travel writers each read a story. It lasts about an hour to an hour and a half. The other two writers in this month’s program are Kirsten Koza and Jayme Moye.

Weekday Wanderlust is a free monthly program where three travel writers each read a story. It lasts about an hour to an hour and a half. The other two writers in this month’s program are Kirsten Koza and Jayme Moye.

It all takes place at the Hotel Rex, a boutique hotel at 562 Sutter Street in San Francisco, a couple of blocks north of the St. Francis Hotel, near Union Square. Some of the participants gather early to drink in the bar adjacent to the meeting room. Weekday Wanderlust is in its third year and was founded by Bay Area-based writers Don George, Kimberley Lovato, and Lavinia Spalding.

Uh oh, it’s going to take a while to get home tonight. The man in front of me with the radio pressed to his ear continues to relay news to the fans around us. We’re here for the third game of the World Series. Five minutes ago, the earth shook, and the crowd cheered. Now we start to realize the magnitude of what’s happened. And where the heck is Darrell? . . . CONTINUE READING: Present at the Re-Creation: The Loma Prieta Earthquake]]>

It was 26 years ago today. I was present at a World Series game between the Giants and the Oakland A’s. Then the earth shook.

A good reason to re-post this story of the Battle of the Bay, and Nature’s response. First published in The Berkeley Daily Planet, October 15, 2009

Uh oh, it’s going to take a while to get home tonight. The man in front of me with the radio pressed to his ear continues to relay news to the fans around us. We’re here for the third game of the World Series. Five minutes ago, the earth shook, and the crowd cheered. Now we start to realize the magnitude of what’s happened. And where the heck is Darrell?

It’s not easy getting tickets to this Series. The Oakland A’s are playing the San Francisco Giants, the first time our two local teams have each won their league championships in the same year. The national media has flocked to the City and dubbed this the Battle of the Bay, or the Bay Bridge Series, ironically it seems now.

Hours earlier, I drive to San Francisco from my home in the East Bay. The Bay Bridge is festooned with small, alternating, team-color pennants – black-and-orange for the Giants, green-and-yellow for the A’s. I pay a scalper $200 each for two tickets.

My buddy Darrell and I join the upbeat crowd flooding into the park, everyone thrilled by the novelty of having both local teams in the Series. In this famously windy and naturally air conditioned city, the air today is oddly still and quite warm … a condition known since the days of Aristotle as earthquake weather.

The A’s won the first two games in Oakland, but after the usual World Series “travel” day, the Giants, who play very well at home at Candlestick, have high hopes tonight. Most of the crowd wears A’s or Giants paraphernalia. As a bicoastal fan who roots for both teams (their stadia flank the coasts of San Francisco Bay), my loyalties are riven by their unusual dual success. I’ve decided to cheer for and wear the colors of whichever team is playing at home. So this day I wear a black-and-orange Giants cap. Little do we know, as we file into the stadium, that nature is poised to strike.

Darrell wanders off in search of a beer after we find our seats. A few minutes later, Candlestick starts to shake like crazy. I look around in astonishment during the 15 seconds of the temblor. Down below me on the field, a long mound of earth is rolling its way under the sod across the outfield from left to center, like a gigantic rolling pin gone mad underground. The grandstand to my right is rippling like a bedsheet on a windy day. Above me, the wind baffle, built years before in an attempt to control the notorious Candlestick weather, flaps around like cardboard.

The shaking stops. After a moment of astonished silence, the crowd breaks into a long, excited cheer. What better way to celebrate the Battle of the Bay than with a quake? What could be more appropriate, more San Francisco … and Oakland? I look again at the wind baffle. Like the rest of the park, it’s made of reinforced concrete and appears undamaged. Clearly only massive, unimaginable force could cause it to flail around that way. Then we hear that the Bridge is in the drink, and I start to wonder if they’ll be playing a game tonight. A few people begin to leave, but I have to sit tight and wait for Darrell.

He returns eventually and tells me he was on the beer line when the quake struck. Everyone oohed and aahed and slipped and fell against each other, then cheered afterward. No one left the beer line. As he returned to the stands with his beer and my Diet Coke, he found himself looking up, wondering if some huge concrete arch was about to fall on him, when he bumped into someone and spilled both drinks.

The blimp and the news helicopter fleet that are here for the game fly off to the Bay Bridge. From our upper deck seats in center field, the lowering sun is in our eyes, so it takes a few minutes before we realize that the scoreboard and other signs are now off. The players and their families, far below us, have come out of the dugouts and stands onto the infield. Eventually a couple of police cars circumnavigate the field and, with their bullhorns, tell the crowd to go home. Though the earthquake damage at Candlestick is quite minimal, the park has lost power, and the game is postponed. I recall that I left my Betamax machine at home preset to start recording at 5 pm, so it should be immortalizing the quake and all this activity.

We walk back to my car. The entire City of San Francisco has lost power, and traffic is chaotic. It takes nearly three hours to get to the car and drive a mile to Darrell’s house. Telephone landlines are down, but my 1989 brick-class cell phone works, and eventually I reach my family. Everyone’s okay, but I’m stuck in the City for a while.

I hole up at Darrell’s as we listen to my car radio on a dark Potrero Hill street. The Bay Bridge has fallen down! That will certainly disrupt commerce and business in the entire region. I assess our situation. It could take a while for things to get back to normal. As a freelancer, I’m always wondering where my next job is coming from. But we have a little cash in the bank, some future work dates booked, a bit of money owed to us by clients. We can survive, unless it takes months, which would be a hardship. But nobody knows yet the scope of this disaster.

Around midnight I decide to head home. I can’t hop on the broken Bay Bridge, the short way to Oakland and points east, so I plan to drive the length of San Francisco north to the Golden Gate Bridge, then cruise home circuitously through Marin County via the Richmond Bridge. I leave Darrell’s and drive through empty back streets. It’s eerily dark and quiet in the neighborhoods. The City, usually bright and full of life, has a dead, creepy, Escape from New York feeling. I hear sirens in the distance and look forward to being at home and watching my recording of the earthquake.

The excitement level increases when I cross Market Street onto Van Ness, a major North-South artery. Though a few sections of the City have power, all the streetlights and traffic lights on my route are still out. Police direct traffic at some intersections, and others are completely uncontrolled and dangerous. But many corners have ordinary people out in the middle of the street trying to coordinate the flow of traffic, doing their best imitations of arm-waving traffic cops. In the face of our recent disaster, this spontaneous citizens’ self-mobilization has people smiling and waving at each other.

Eventually I get home and reunite with my family. The power is back on at our house. Once everything settles down, I check the Betamax, but the quake hit only moments after the machine turned itself on, the power went off at our house, and it never recorded the event.

The aftermath is oddly anticlimactic. Sadly, a few dozen people are killed in the quake, but not the hundreds or thousands anticipated immediately after it happened. It seems that in Northern California, instead of being at work or on the road commuting, most people were already home at 5 o’clock to watch the Battle of the Bay. They had thought it would just be a baseball game.

The news is generally less awful than everyone’s worst fears. Fires rage for a day and homes collapse in residential neighborhoods built on landfill in the Marina District in San Francisco, and downtown Santa Cruz, near the epicenter at Loma Prieta, loses dozens of buildings, but all with minimal loss of life and limb. Most neighborhoods are virtually untouched. About 50 people perish when a mile-and-a-half of double-decker freeway in Oakland called the Cypress Structure collapses. Tragic, only a tenth the number authorities estimate at first might be trapped in such a long stretch of road. Again, the early starting time of the Series saves lives. Things could be worse.

The Bay Bridge doesn’t actually fall into the drink. One 50-foot section of upper-deck roadbed is dislodged by the quake and one end falls through onto the lower deck. Two cars drive into the hole, killing one person. Nothing actually hits the water. Certainly not the wholesale collapse of girders, cables, rebar, and concrete that I envisioned when I heard that it fell. Balancing this unsettling event is the news that damage is virtually nonexistent in modern buildings and skyscrapers built to sway and roll in earthquakes, as well as the entire BART train system, underground and under the Bay. BART rises to the challenge and adds trains to and from San Francisco. Ridership increases markedly.

But the Loma Prieta quake has a powerful emotional effect. A few people I know threaten to move back to Kentucky, or Florida, or wherever. I have too much time on my hands in the economic lull that follows, and my mood sours. Each time I take our pooch to the dog park, I find myself wondering how I’ll get back if another quake hits and the only road in is broken. I obsess about how I would have reacted if the quake had hit earlier in the day, when I was on the Bridge. I worry if our house and deck are sufficiently braced for another shaker.

I pine for my lost Betamax recording, as if my brain can’t accept and resolve what happened without my being able to replay it mechanically. I’m absorbed by earthquake news and nervewracked by each aftershock. I feel compelled to go see the fallen Cypress Structure and take the dog with me. She throws up in my car. I don’t want to talk to anyone. I’m depressed.

I’m not the only one. I see on the news that the earthquake has emotionally discombobulated lots of others. TV shrinks implore us all to seek help, to talk about what happened, to share our experiences with those around us. I pass my neighbor in the street and impulsively launch into a detailed description of the events at Candlestick, the rolling pin, the wind baffle, Darrell and the beer line, my drive across the City. She looks at me warily, then blurts out her story: She was at home when the quake struck, and ran down the stairs from her house to the street, watching the utility poles on our block whip back and forth like a cartoon, as the ground rolled and shook … an image I now have engrained in my memory as deeply as if I’d witnessed it myself. I wander down to the Burger Depot and order a turkey burger as I spill my story again to Dave, the owner. He tells me he was scared as the place shook and plates and glasses rattled off shelves around him.

Gradually I start to feel better. The whole region eventually gets back to normal. I take BART to the City a few times for work, which helps me feel less cut off. The World Series resumes after a ten-day delay. Darrell has to work, so I bring another friend along, and the A’s win the next two games to sweep the Series. Eventually, nearly a half million people claim to have been at Candlestick for the earthquake.

The Bay Bridge is out for exactly a month. The day before it opens to traffic, they plan a ribbon-cutting ceremony out on the Bridge, right at the repaired section, with the mayors of San Francisco and Oakland in attendance. When the State announces that the public will be allowed to walk out onto the Bridge – for the first time ever – to attend the ceremony, I feel that I must bear witness. Having been present at the disaster (I consider that attending the Earthquake Game at Candlestick has given me a very personal stake in this earthquake), I want to be present at the re-creation of the Bridge. I take my son out of first grade, impress upon him the historical importance of the occasion, and drag him along.

We drive to a parking lot in Emeryville, where we board buses with hundreds of others. They drop us just past the toll plaza and metering lights, and we all begin the long slow uphill trek. The break was in the very last roadway section before the girdered, Erector-Set superstructure. The mammoth size of the Bridge awes us as we tread where no mere mortals have gone before.

Razi starts out in a positive frame of mind as we walk. It’s a beautiful day, sunny and brisk. This section of the Bridge has a fresh coat of paint. State workers with hard hats stand every few feet, greet us with big smiles, and thank us for coming. The media swarm. The mood is festive.

A radio reporter interviews Razi, who tells her that his daddy assured him “the fixed part of the Bridge is now stronger than it was before the earthquake” and that it’s important for us all to walk out here “to show we know the bridge is safe again.”

But after a long walk, the novelty wears off, and reality sets in. Only four weeks ago, this old Bridge shook enough to break its massive concrete roadbed. He starts to get scared and wants to turn back. That’s okay with me. The bunting and crowds are visible up ahead, another five or ten minute walk. But I’ve had my moment of history. I’ve had my bridge walk. Who cares if we get to see some smelly old ceremony with a bunch of politicians? Betamax or no Betamax, new memories are replacing the old ones. We turn and trudge back to the buses. The healing is well under way.

]]>http://www.billzarchy.com/blog/present-at-the-re-creation-the-loma-prieta-earthquake/feed/2This Saturday in San Francisco: Travel Writers Read at LitCrawlhttp://www.billzarchy.com/blog/ill-be-reading-a-story-at-litcrawl-october-17th/
http://www.billzarchy.com/blog/ill-be-reading-a-story-at-litcrawl-october-17th/#respondWed, 14 Oct 2015 06:39:04 +0000http://www.billzarchy.com/blog/?p=906I’m delighted to be reading a story at LitCrawl in San Francisco this Saturday evening, along with five eminent travel writers.

Across the Wide World: Traveling Writers Explore Encounters with People, Places, and Cultures

Traveling out of our comfort zones creates opportunities for discovery, transformation, and illumination. These writers bring back life lessons that are profoundly moving and universal.

I’ll be reading an excerpt from my book SHOWDOWN AT SHINAGAWA at LitCrawl in San Francisco: “The 11th annual Lit Crawl will span over three hours in the Mission District’s Valencia Street corridor, featuring an astonishing 101 literary readings and events, including poetry, fiction, nonfiction, comedy and more, in bookstores, bars, galleries, restaurants, stores, cafés, community spaces, a bookmobile, a vibrator store, and a police station.”

LitCrawl is part of LitQuake, which “seeks to foster interest in literature for people of all ages, perpetuate a sense of literary community, and provide a vibrant forum for writing from the Bay Area and beyond as a complement to the city’s music, film, and cultural festivals.”

Sometimes the course of your life can turn on one small thing, one chance encounter. It happened to me, many years ago, the day Beverly invited me to visit her.

Of course I had the hots for her—pretty, round face, sparkling blue eyes, long blond hair. But ever since our one blind date during college, I had known we would never be more than friends.

I ran into her at Butcher and Stephanie’s wedding about a year after graduation. She was the maid of honor and I was an usher. During the reception, at a fancy club on the harbor in Marblehead, Massachusetts, Beverly and I wandered down the hill . . . CONTINUE READING: A Chance Encounter]]>

Running the clapstick. First year at Stanford Film School.

Sometimes the course of your life can turn on one small thing, one chance encounter. It happened to me, many years ago, the day Beverly invited me to visit her.

Of course I had the hots for her—pretty, round face, sparkling blue eyes, long blond hair. But ever since our one blind date during college, I had known we would never be more than friends.

I ran into her at Butcher and Stephanie’s wedding about a year after graduation. She was the maid of honor and I was an usher. During the reception, at a fancy club on the harbor in Marblehead, Massachusetts, Beverly and I wandered down the hill to the beach, got high, and played on the rocks at the water’s edge.

“I’m living with three other girls in Cambridge this summer,” she said. “Why don’t you come visit? Come hang out with us.”

Wow, four girls in one apartment! An attractive offer after four years of monosexual education at Dartmouth, and another year of monastic existence while teaching high school in northern Vermont. So a week later I drove to Cambridge to see her.

John, a former classmate of mine, was also visiting Beverly and her roommates. I hadn’t known him very well in college, though we shared a number of common friends, including Butcher. John had dated Stephanie for a while, but they’d broken up near the end of our senior year, and he had enlisted in the Army to keep one step ahead of the draft.

During the ensuing year, Butcher and Stephanie had started to date, become engaged, and planned their wedding in Marblehead. John had just finished his basic training and had some leave time before shipping off to Vietnam. So he had dropped in on Beverly.

“How was the wedding?” he asked when I first saw him. He laughed. “No problem, Stephanie and I were done a long time ago.”

We spent several days there, talking non-stop. It was like making a new friend. I told him about teaching, about my summer job, about visiting friends who hated law school. He talked about the Army, about basic, about Nam. Neither of us had a girlfriend or a clear direction in life. We were 22.

John went off to New Jersey to see his mom, and I went back to my parents’ house on Long Island. We agreed to get together once more before he shipped out, so we met the following week in Manhattan, had dinner, went to a movie, wandered the streets, and spotted Broadway Joe Namath, then star quarterback of the New York Jets, strolling along in an elegant suit, a babe on each arm. Then John and I stopped to sit by the fountain outside Lincoln Center.

“What are you going to do next?” he asked. I was under contract to teach for another year, but had no plans after that.

“Dunno,” I said. “How about you?” I had imagined that John would get blown away in Nam. I was a product of my generation, and my heart ached for him. I’d been to peace marches, I smoked pot, I’d grown my hair, I’d seen Hair, and I had experimented with the occasional hallucinogenic. I was terribly afraid for John, even though I knew he was an army clerk, not a combat soldier.

Nevertheless, I asked bravely, “What are you gonna do after the army?”

“I’m thinking of going to film school,” he said.

That was a new idea. “What’s that? What do you do there?”

“I dunno. Study about movies, I guess. And make them.”

Cool. I loved movies. Dartmouth had had a film society. A five-dollar membership bought 30 films each quarter, many arty, imported, or offbeat, and all accompanied by lists of credits and student-written reviews. Also, the publicly owned Nugget Theatre in town ran two flicks at a time, often classics or foreign films, and changed programs twice a week. I’d often stayed up late with friends, talking about movies, but I didn’t know yet if I wanted to make them.

John survived the war. In the year he was gone, I completed my teaching obligation, flunked two draft physicals, and drew the amazingly fortuitous number 361 in the birthdate-based draft lottery. Though I had earlier sought admission to over a dozen law and journalism programs, I now applied to four or five graduate film programs around the country. I had no background in film, so Stanford was the only school to admit me. I prepared to move to California. John and I had been corresponding all year, and I knew he’d be back from Nam some time soon.

By midsummer, I was staying with my then-girlfriend at Butcher and Stephanie’s apartment in Berkeley, while they visited family back east. The phone rang early one morning. Drowsily I listened as she answered and told the caller, “No, they’re out of town for a few weeks while we take care of their place. Who? Oh yes. One moment.”

She handed me the phone. “It’s for you.”

It was John, who had just mustered out of the service in Oakland and had guessed I might be staying with Butcher. I woke up quickly. We got together, celebrated, talked, partied. Later that fall, after I started at Stanford, he moved in with my roommate and me, sleeping on the couch in our living room. A month later, he offered to pay rent. A few months after that, we rented a house and John willingly moved into that living room and continued to pay rent.

A level-headed fellow, John made himself useful on campus, acting and crewing for student films and working as a technician in the theatre department. The following year he was also admitted to the graduate film program, and he reconnected with Ann, whom he had dated early in our college years.

I met Susan late one night in an editing room. We had instant rapport and became close platonic friends for a year. On my 25th birthday we became lovers and began living together. That was 43 years, four apartments, two houses, and two kids ago. After seven years of cohabitation, we formalized our commitment and got married.

We remain good friends with John and Ann. Susan played the recorder at their wedding in the redwoods south of San Francisco. John was an usher at ours. We live five blocks apart. We joke that we always do the same things, but they often lead. They moved to our small town in the East Bay years ago. We liked it and followed suit. They bought a Toyota wagon, and so did we, a year later. Then Volvos. They had two kids spaced four years apart, and we did too, but two years behind them. Without consultation, we each bought the same barbecue and automated espresso coffee maker.

John still works as a film and video editor, often on major movies. Susan and Ann have retired from teaching. I recently retired from a long and interesting career as a cinematographer and also taught cinematography and lighting at four Bay Area colleges. I am writing books—first a memoir of my work and travels, and now a time travel novel called FindingGeorge Washington.

I could never have guessed my life would turn out this way.

Susan and I visited Lincoln Center last summer, and I sat down by the fountain with her and recalled the chat when John had told me about film school, clarifying the path that my life would follow. The memory moved me, and I called him to share the moment, to recall the evening we saw Joe Namath.

Butcher and Stephanie’s marriage didn’t survive the first few years, but I saw Beverly again about a year after I started at Stanford. She turned up in Petaluma, California, living on a chicken ranch. I drove up to see her.

“Wanna drop acid and go see the New Riders of the Purple Sage?” she asked, a moment after I arrived. A product of my generation, I agreed, and we did. It was a surreal scene. Beverly drove us in her decommissioned, blue-and-white postal step van, through California back roads to a club in Cotati. We arrived hours early and took a table up front at the venue, tripping on acid as the road crew moved in and set up speakers, mics, amps, and instruments. The band finally arrived after we had sat there for a very long time. By our great good fortune, Jerry Garcia, who often played with the New Riders, sat down and played the pedal steel guitar about five feet in front of us.

It was a mindblowing evening, but I never saw Beverly again after that. I heard at one point that she had gone to South America, but I don’t know if that was true.

Though Beverly played only a small walk-on role in my personal narrative, her impact was huge. The course of my life had turned on my chance encounter with her. Without Beverly, I wouldn’t have run into John after the wedding. No John, no film school, no Stanford, no Susan. I could easily have ended up living in a different part of the country, with a different career and a different family.

When I called John from Lincoln Center, his phone rang a few times, then defaulted to a welcome message. No matter. Our chat decades before had set my destiny, and I didn’t mind babbling about it in a voice mail. I knew John would appreciate the moment. That’s what good friends are for.

We loved our first house in San Francisco, in the Excelsior district of the Outer Mission. We loved the fact that we owned it, loved that we had managed to move quickly enough to evade eviction by our last landlady (who had suddenly decided to move into our apartment), loved that our living space had increased to include three bedrooms and two baths, loved that we now had a huge, two-car garage with washer and dryer and a concrete back yard we transformed into a garden with roses and sunflowers and paths of brick and camomile.

We loved our first house in San Francisco, in the Excelsior district of the Outer Mission. We loved the fact that we owned it, loved that we had managed to move quickly enough to evade eviction by our last landlady (who had suddenly decided to move into our apartment), loved that our living space had increased to include three bedrooms and two baths, loved that we now had a huge, two-car garage with washer and dryer and a concrete back yard we transformed into a garden with roses and sunflowers and paths of brick and camomile.

We loved our location across from Crocker Park, loved taking our toddler to the swings there, loved jogging around the park, loved watching the Samoans play cricket there on Sundays, loved seeing others play softball, loved strolling through the Eucalyptus-lined lanes.

We didn’t love the gunshots that emanated from the park in our first month living there, didn’t love the fact that our jogging route behind the grandstands took us through a smelly concrete canyon which had been used as a urinal since the beginning of time, didn’t love the handful of unsavory characters who hung out there, didn’t love that the long-promised clubhouse the city built there was finally completed around the time we left the neighborhood.

We didn’t love that our house was in direct line with the Daly City Fog Gap, didn’t love that it was usually cold and foggy and windy there, didn’t love that the previous owner (when asked about the weather) lied: “when it’s foggy here, it’s foggy everywhere,” didn’t love that we had to wear parkas to the park in the summer, didn’t love that the weather forced us to lean into the wind when returning to our house from the swings.

We loved our neighborhood, especially getting to know some of the Italian families who had lived there for generations. We loved meeting Ambrose and Charlie B——–, who had grown up together in the house Ambrose still occupied on our block (though Charlie had moved a few doors down after he married), loved learning that there were a number of B——– families in the neighborhood, including several Ambroses, all descended from grandmother Ambrosia.

We didn’t love the older couple next door, who had seemed nice until they sold their house and moved away, without a word to us, didn’t love the scumbag they sold it to, who we figured was a drug dealer, didn’t love the fact that he owned three attack-trained Dobermans, didn’t love that the Dobermans didn’t get along (which meant that one had to be outside at all times), didn’t love the fact that the dogs would leap up on the fence between our yards, snarling and barking furiously, whenever we went out back, didn’t love that the scumbag didn’t care that his dogs barked all the time and didn’t care that we had a new baby in the house.

We loved that, after several SFPD noise citations to the scumbag, the DA referred our dispute to neighborhood arbitration, loved that Ambrose and Charlie B——– showed up to support us and attest to the barking dog nuisance, loved that the scumbag brought a lawyer who urged him to agree to keep his dogs in at night, loved learning that spraying the dogs with a hose (when the scumbag was absent) would send them inside through the dog door, loved that the dogs quickly learned to go inside every time they heard our back door open.

We didn’t love that the public schools in our neighborhood were poor and our toddler was about to turn three.

I always assumed they were real places, and recently I dug around to find out how they got their colorful names. Internet research truly is the best!

Googling “Broken Elbow, Indiana” yielded a few promising results: a juicy lead about an Indiana Pacers player (Chris Copeland) who broke his elbow; an informational site for medical elbow and shoulder providers in Indianapolis; another site for orthopedic surgeons in northwest Indiana; and a news alert about an Oakland A’s player (from Indiana) who broke his elbow throwing a pitch this weekend.

I always assumed they were real places, and recently I dug around to find out how they got their colorful names. Internet research truly is the best!

Googling “Broken Elbow, Indiana” yielded a few promising results: a juicy lead about an Indiana Pacers player (Chris Copeland) who broke his elbow; an informational site for medical elbow and shoulder providers in Indianapolis; another site for orthopedic surgeons in northwest Indiana; and a news alert about an Oakland A’s player (from Indiana) who broke his elbow throwing a pitch this weekend.

My search for the origins of “Frozen Dog, Iowa” also seemed rife with possibilities: a TV news story about a man discovering a frozen (human) body while out walking his dog in Des Moines; another self-explanatory headline “Frozen Dog Found in Trash in Iowa;” and a pet food site (for dogs, cats, and ferrets) called “My Pet Carnivore” which, among other things, sells frozen pet food in Iowa.

But where should I go from there? Some hard thinking was necessary. I mean, really, would anyone name a town after a medical practice? Crazy thought! On the other hand, what if the town’s most distinguished citizen had benefited from special treatments after an elbow break? Well … uh … still unlikely. Then, digging a little deeper on the Interwebs, I discovered the shocking factoid that the Pacers player broke his elbow in a stabbing incident. The kind of thing that generates sympathy, compassion, and yes, the desire to commemorate. The unavoidable conclusion: Broken Elbow, Indiana, was named for Copeland’s injury.

On to Iowa! Why would anyone name a town after unfortunate mammals of the two- or four-legged variety who had frozen to death? Much too sad to commemorate in the name of a municipality! But My Pet Carnivore certainly sparked the imagination … I mean, wouldn’t the very existence of an establishment like this be sufficient to convince the people of a small Iowa town to come together and change the name of their village from something common or overused like Franklin or Springfield or Cedarville/city/falls/rapids/grove, perhaps, to Frozen Dog? What could possibly make more sense?

Delighted with my progress in solving these naming enigmas, I decided to find out exactly where Pop’s Podunks were located. I googled and googled till my fingertips were raw and bleeding, but I turned up no results at all. No online map of Indiana or Iowa showed a town named Broken Elbow or Frozen Dog.

Which leads to an inevitable conclusion: how brilliant that my dad knew of places too small to appear on maps! And furthermore (since Copeland’s stabbing took place last year, My Pet Carnivore was established two years before that, and Pop died in 2002), how amazing that he knew years ago all that was going to happen!

I always knew Pop was a genius. But now, after this thought-y intellectual exercise, I am finally following along in his footsteps. Clearly, the apple doesn’t fall far from the squeaky wheel!

It’s not easy being a mileage whore. Sometimes you have to do things that don’t seem to make sense.

United Airlines operates a major hub in San Francisco, and I’ve whored for their miles for years now. On my trip to Brazil recently, because I wanted the mileage, I had chosen a longer United itinerary through Newark going and Washington coming.

But when things got complicated on the return, I had to decide if the miles were worth it.

It’s not easy being a mileage whore. Sometimes you have to do things that don’t seem to make sense.

United Airlines operates a major hub in San Francisco, and I’ve whored for their miles for years now. On my trip to Brazil recently, because I wanted the mileage, I had chosen a longer United itinerary through Newark going and Washington coming.

But when things got complicated on the return, I had to decide if the miles were worth it.

We wrapped our week-long video shoot in São Paulo on a Friday night—amid much hugging and thanking with the cast and crew—and had time to relax over dinner that evening.

Saturday was the first day all week I didn’t have to set my alarm for 5:30, and I luxuriated in sleeping in. I had plans to meet my co-worker for breakfast before his 3 pm flight back home to Salvador, Bahia, further north up the Brazilian coast. My own departure for the States was scheduled for Saturday night.

But when I awoke with a start Saturday morning, I had an email and several phone messages from United, warning me that my scheduled 10:15 departure that night to Washington-Dulles had been pushed back five hours to 3:15 am Sunday, because of “late aircraft arrival.” I didn’t mind leaving Brazil later, but I did the math and quickly realized that I would miss my connecting flight from Dulles to San Francisco.

I thought it odd that United knew so far in advance that their aircraft would arrive late; the plane was probably still hours away from its scheduled departure. I checked the Internets to see what was up. Good night! Hurricane Irene had made landfall in South Carolina a few hours before and was, at that moment, devastating the Washington area as it moved north up the coast.

I called United, to the special Premier Executive Mileage Whore number in the States, to discuss my itinerary. The agent was sympathetic to my plight and cheerfully re-booked my Dulles-SFO connecting flight.

“But I have to ask,” I stammered, “Is it safe to fly through Dulles? I mean, isn’t the hurricane kind of a hindrance to air traffic?”

“Well,” the agent replied in measured tones, “Dulles hasn’t shut down. It’s one of the few airports in the Northeast to stay open, though we’ve had many cancellations there today.

“You can accept this reservation now and still change it later if things don’t look right,” she told me. “We’ve temporarily waived all change fees, to make it easier for people to reroute their flights around the bad weather. All our Brazil flights go through the Northeast, but we can always try to route you through Houston or Miami on another carrier.”

So, did flying directly into a hurricane seem like a prudent idea? No. Was I willing to keep the same itinerary in order to stay on United? You bet. Also, I’d spent time on United’s website since landing in Brazil, checking their seat maps regularly and grabbing better Economy seats as they came available—aisle seats in the slightly-more-legroom section, and closer to the front. If I switched airlines, I was afraid I’d get jammed into a middle seat on some other carrier.

I surfed through some weather sites and bought a new weather app for my iPad, trying to determine if I’d be heading right into the eye of the storm. Most weather prognosticators were guessing that Irene would continue to head north.

Meanwhile, I headed out with my friends for a Brazilian brunch, a feijoada (fayzh-WHA-duh), a traditional Portuguese dish of beans usually served with rice and various meats. Our feijoada that day included thin strips of meat, thick chops, and sausages—pork, pork, and pork—delicious, though a bit heavy once ingested.

After lunch, I bade my coworkers farewell and went shopping for gifts. While driving to the market, I received a confirming email from United for my newly booked connecting flight from Dulles to San Francisco … on Saturday afternoon.

Big problem. It was already Saturday afternoon, and I was still in South America. Somehow, it seemed, United’s computers, huffing and puffing from the strain of rebooking thousands of cancellations, had allowed on my itinerary a Saturday connecting flight to SFO that left before my Sunday morning flight from Sao Paulo!

I called the airline, and the operator at the special Mileage Whore line chuckled over the mistake, saying, “That’s impossible. The software can’t actually do that.” Nevertheless, it did. She rebooked me for a second flight that would actually leave after my first flight arrived, then announced that my departure from Sao Paulo had now been put back another hour, to 4:15 am Sunday. The good news was that my request to upgrade from Economy Class would probably go through.

At one time many of my jobs flew us in comfy, wide Business Class seats. But in recent years, they usually send us in Economy, and it’s become nearly impossible to upgrade. I’m a big guy, and I have a lot of experience folding myself into small Coach seats. But with a quarter million miles in my United account, if the opportunity came along to upgrade to Business Class for my long international flight segment, I’d be happy to sacrifice 25,000 miles and a few hundred bucks for a ticket that would normally cost several thousand dollars and greater comfort.

Then I found out … (drumroll) … that my flight to Dulles featured “two-cabin service”—Economy Class and First. No Business Class. So I might be able to upgrade to First Class, the Holy Grail of Mileage Whoredom.

Late Saturday afternoon, I went for a walk in the upscale neighborhood of my hotel. How could I tell it was upscale? The Ferrari dealer on the corner was one clue. The very expensive pizza parlor and French bistro in the area were two more. I spent a long time wandering slowly through the streets, taking pictures of people and buildings, absorbing as much Brazil as I could before dark, conscious that I still had a long time to wait for my flight.

Back in my hotel room, I haunted the weather sites, checking their predictions for Dulles the next day, glomming onto ambiguous, sketchy guesses that the DC weather might be partly cloudy “with a chance of tropical storm conditions” on Sunday, whatever that meant. My obsession with the weather, a nap, and dinner helped me pass the time till my midnight ride to the airport, knowing I’d be up most of the night waiting for my plane.

In my carry-on luggage, I had carefully packed the power supplies for my laptop, my iPhone, and my iPad, anticipating that I could get stuck for many hours in some airport, either a further-delayed departure from Sao Paulo, or a much longer layover in Dulles. At least I would have stuff to read and ways to communicate, as long as there was electricity. I wondered if I should bring sandwiches or food or flashlights. Was I crazy to be flying right into the hurricane? I thought about all those lovely miles, and decided it made perfect sense.

I did manage to upgrade to First for the flight to Dulles, and we left right on time at 4:15, six hours late. I quickly realized how lucky I was: this aircraft’s First Class section featured fully reclining lie-flat bed seats. I’d never had one of these reclining bed capsules before. After a week of short nights, long days, and non-stop activity, the comfort was worth every mile and every dollar!

In the end, the hurricane was a non-issue. I got off much easier than the poor folks who lived in the path of the storm. Irene did pass through Dulles a full day before me and was already tearing up New York on her way to Boston when my flight from Brazil made landfall, right on time, in DC. Partly cloudy never looked so good, and I saw no “tropical storm conditions.” I cleared Customs, rechecked my bags to SFO, then found the gate for my connecting flight and was delighted when the agent handed me another First Class ticket.

Upgrades were available because Irene had scared many fliers away from the Northeast Corridor. I could have come back through Texas or Miami, if I hadn’t wanted my United miles. But since I stayed on plan, like a true Mileage Whore, I was rewarded with First Class on both legs of the journey. Obviously the secret to upgrading on an international flight is to fly through a natural disaster. Or near one.

I tucked into a complimentary glass of red wine, my personal movies and adjustable footrest deployed, my cushy First Class seat reclined jauntily, and settled in for the ride home.

One Thing I Won’t Miss About Brazil

Signs like these are ubiquitous, even in hotels. As in many Latin American countries, Brazilian septic systems are subject to clogging. The signs advise you not to flush your toilet paper or towels, but to discard them in the cans provided. The sign below reminds you that others will use the toilet after you, and also requests you not urinate on the floor.

]]>http://www.billzarchy.com/blog/bye-bye-brazil%e2%80%94good-night-irene/feed/0New Book Review? Is This English?http://www.billzarchy.com/blog/new-book-review-is-this-english/
http://www.billzarchy.com/blog/new-book-review-is-this-english/#respondWed, 28 May 2014 07:32:30 +0000http://www.billzarchy.com/blog/?p=878

I just found an online page which appears, at first, to be a review of my book SHOWDOWN at SHINAGAWA. Then I read the page all the way through. I know these are English words, but … is this English? My favorites are learning that “SHOWDOWN at SHINAGAWA … lets you cook flavorful and tasty food without the hassles” and “will go a long way to discourage mischievous activities at the home or business. The one is simply the ultimate for the budget-conscious hunter that refuses to sacrifice performance.”

Huh?

Here is the whole piece, from suchwatch.com, which purports to be an “Internet online shopping directory:”

I just found an online page which appears, at first, to be a review of my book SHOWDOWN at SHINAGAWA. Then I read the page all the way through. I know these are English words, but … is this English? My favorites are learning that “SHOWDOWN at SHINAGAWA … lets you cook flavorful and tasty food without the hassles” and “will go a long way to discourage mischievous activities at the home or business. The one is simply the ultimate for the budget-conscious hunter that refuses to sacrifice performance.”

Huh?

Here is the whole piece, from suchwatch.com, which purports to be an “Internet online shopping directory:”

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